In 2007, the world of MMA was completely different. When I say “absolutely”, I actually mean “ALL-ALL”.

A very simple example is the BoDog tournament in April 2007, which was held in St. Petersburg. In the main battle were Amar Suloev and Andy Foster. Amar Suloev - one of the veterans of the sport in the post-Soviet space with a record of 24-7, trained with Fedor in the Red Devil team, spent 2 fights in the UFC (both lost, Lidell and Baroni), performed in Pride, won such fighters as Yushin Okami , Dean Thomas, Dean Lister, Murilo Bustamante, was detained in 2013 on charges of involvement in contract killing, and in 2016 he died from cancer. His rival Andy Foster is not very interesting, except that he is probably the only fighter who has a photograph in a business suit in his Sherdog profile.

Not impressed yet? Okay, there were such sports legends as Eric Oganov, Darrick Noble, Dmitry Samoilov and Ray Steinbiss at the same tournament. Do not know these guys and their achievements? We, too, but in this tournament their fights stood in the card above the fight of Fedor Emelianenko against Matt Lydland, as well as the battles of Alexander Emelianenko and Eddie Alvarez. At the same tournament Roman Zentsov and Andrey Semenov were noted.

This should be enough, but we are just warming up. Another couple who performed higher than Fedor in this tournament were Julia Kedzi and Julia Berezikova. It would have been an unremarkable fight, but Kedzie told about the sensitive detail that happened during the fight. Here is her story, which she shared in a podcast by Joe Rogan:

“I fought at the BoDog tournament in front of a huge crowd and Vladimir Putin was in the hall. This was my second gig in St. Petersburg and the first time that Greg Jackson was in my corner. I trained under his supervision for only three weeks and really wanted to impress him.

My rival was Yulia Berezikova, a Russian girl in Russia, so I was expecting a certain bias - Russian judges in Russia, in a fight against a Russian.

In short, she broke my nose in the first round, but I won the round by transferring to the ground floor. I'm going back to my corner, Greg puts my nose in order. And Amanda Buckner, the second person in my corner, began to pour cold water on my neck. I went through a lot of fights, but no one ever poured cold water on my neck, so it shocked me. Therefore, at the moment when she did it - I jumped up and, as I thought then, just farted. Then she went to the battle and won it.

Immediately after the battle, the organizers threw me on the bus and took me somewhere, I didn’t even have time to take off my gloves, and my nose was bleeding, it’s unbelievable - I was dressed from the fight, and we were taken to the palace with Vladimir Putin and Silvio Berlusconi. Jean-Claude Van Damme was there, Fedor Emelianenko was there - this is my favorite fighter!